Transnational Series: ’Pemi Aguda, Keith Jones, and Enzo Silon Surin

Join the for an in-store event with writers ’Pemi Aguda, Keith Jones, and Enzo Silon Surin to discuss and celebrate the release of the latest issue of Transition Magazine on Species and .

The latest issue of Transition: The Magazine of Africa and the Diaspora's focus is Species. Species builds on the previous issue Climate by tracking the intimate relationship of the Diaspora to all forms of life. Among the relationships considered in this issue are those imposed on Africans as a result of the atrocities of Middle Passage (and racialized chattel slavery) as well as practices and relationships that grow from–and resist–those atrocities. In addition to many essays, and an interview with artist Kapwani Kiwanga, remarkable fiction and poetry also address the issue’s themes, including the opening poems by Enzo Silon Surin as well as stunning contributions from Keith Jones, among others.

In Ghostroots, a beguiling collection of twelve imaginative stories set in Lagos, Nigeria, ’Pemi Aguda dramatizes the tension between our yearning to be individuals and the ways we are haunted by what came before.

In “Manifest,” a woman sees the ghost of her abusive mother in her daughter’s face. Shortly after, the daughter is overtaken by wicked and destructive impulses. In “Breastmilk,” a wife forgives her husband for his infidelity. Months later, when she is unable to produce milk for her newborn, she blames herself for failing to uphold her mother’s feminist values and doubts her fitness for motherhood. In “Things Boys Do,” a trio of fathers finds something unnatural and unnerving about their infant sons. As their lives rapidly fall to pieces, they begin to fear that their sons are the cause of their troubles. And in “24, Alhaji Williams Street,” a teenage boy lives in the shadow of a mysterious disease that’s killing the boys on his street.

These and other stories in Ghostroots map emotional and physical worlds that lay bare the forces of family, myth, tradition, gender, and modernity in Nigerian society. Powered by a deep empathy and glinting with humor, they announce a major new literary talent.

’Pemi Aguda is an MFA graduate from the Helen Zell Writers’ Program at the University of Michigan. Her writing has been published in Granta, Ploughshares, Zoetrope, and other publications, and has been awarded the O. Henry Prize for short fiction. She is the current Hortense Spillers Assistant Editor at Transition Magazine. She is from Lagos, Nigeria, and is currently living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Keith Jones is the author of Echo’s Errand and the poetry chapbooks, blue lake of tensile fire, shorn ellipses, the lucid upward ladder, Fugue Meadow, and Surface to Air, Residuals of Basquiat. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Barrow Street, Chicago Review, Denver Quarterly, Flag + Void, Harvard Review, SX Salon, Transition, Verse, and elsewhere. He teaches in the Africana Studies Department at the University of Massachusetts Boston and is the current Poet-in-Residence at New England Conservatory.

Enzo Silon Surin is a renowned Haitian-born poet, author, educator, speaker, publisher, and social advocate. As the acclaimed author of American Scapegoat and When My Body Was A Clinched Fist, Surin has received the 21st Annual Massachusetts Book Award for Poetry and has been featured in esteemed publications and anthologies. Currently serving as a Visiting Instructor at MassArt, he also holds roles as Founding Editor & Publisher at Central Square Press and Founder/Executive Director at the Faraday Publishing Company, Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to literary services and social advocacy.

The Transnational Literature Series at Brookline Booksmith

The Transnational Series focuses on stories of migration, the intersection of politics and literature, and works in translation and is supported by the independent bookstore Brookline Booksmith. Subscribe to the Transnational Series newsletter for information on upcoming events, book recommendations, and more.

What You Need to Know to Attend

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Livestream!

Barring technical difficulty, this event will be livestreamed to our store YouTube channel.

Event Accesibility

This event will take place at street level. If possible, the event will be livestreamed to YouTube. ASL interpretation may be provided (based on the availability of interpreters) but must be requested at least 2 weeks in advance of the event. Seats are limited. Please email us at [email protected] as soon as possible if you require ASL interpretation, guaranteed seating, or other accommodations. We will do our best to serve your needs!

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